


Looking Past the Present

by Detavot



Series: BBKidsWeek [5]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Canon - Manga, Gen, I had another story for today but it was better off seperated from the week, Manga & Anime, Our Ciel thinking about things is always bound to be angst, Some more Ciel angst for our hearts, bbkidsweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 08:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15636579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Detavot/pseuds/Detavot
Summary: The wait is long, and even longer when one is stuck in the past. Your life is nothing but a game, can't you see?





	Looking Past the Present

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt - Angst
> 
> This one is almost as heavy as the manga itself oof

    A lone child walked through the grand halls which seemed to swallow him whole, his head held high and his back straight. In this house constructed by a demon, in this house which had become a Hell on Earth, he could never let his mask fall. But… He was only a child, even though he tried so desperately to hide that fact. Looking at a familiar window sill, his heart softened without his permission and his feet carried him towards it. This window sill had once been his favourite place, well away from everyone else’s sight as he observed them. Once, he would have had to carry a chair to reach it. He had grown since then, he could sit on it with just a little hop; and that was just what he did.

    He shifted to find a comfortable position and smiled victoriously once he did. He tilted his head right and realised with great disdain that he had to spare more effort into observing because of his eyepatch. He undid the knot and let the small, silk cloth fall; for this particular mask did not need to be held up without anyone around to fool. He saw the amethyst glow reflected in the glass and ignored it, except focusing on the garden filled with beautiful green grass and other blindingly colourful flowers. He allowed himself a gentle smile when he saw his four incompetent idiots frolicking in the garden and doing none of the duties assigned to them. At least Snake, ever the hard-working one, was trying (no matter how half-heartedly) to get them to focus. Bless his big, cold-and-warm-blooded heart.

    He wondered, mindlessly, if the four would be so eager to grin and play in his garden if they knew the truths hidden behind the masks and walls. He drew his knees closer to his chest, wishing he had brought with him a book to serve as a distraction. It looked fun, he admitted only to himself and his thoughts. It looked fun to be running, laughing, playing outside. Before his eyes, the four turned into dead people and the garden traveled back in time.

    Ciel, Lizzy, Madame Red, Father. They were playing, Ciel was laughing, Lizzy was smiling, Aunt Angelina and Father were exchanging bemused glances. (There was something more in Auntie Ann’s gaze, something little Astre did not understand). It looked fun. The sun looked warm, Ciel’s laugh sounded welcoming, and the freshly mowed grass smelled of Heaven. The window sill was warmed by the sun’s light and Astre’s book lay forgotten on the other side of the sill. Sebastian was there, poking the child’s side as if to make sure his presence was not forgotten. Mother was sick again, laying in bed, and Astre had just gotten better from his seasonal sickness.

    Ciel’s eyes met his own through the window, but that was impossible. Ciel had never looked up before. Ciel had never noticed him before, not when the walls of the estate were between them. Ciel coughed blood.

    _Don't take him from me!_

    With a startled gasp, his eyes met with the Finnian’s confused ones. Finnian’s eyes were green, not blue. Finnian was blonde. Finnian wasn't getting killed. Finnian was here. Finnian was with the three other incompetent servants.

    Ciel averted his eyes and hopped off the window sill. He took his eyepatch and turned his back to the sunlight, walking through the halls of his estate with the walls around him keeping him safe. “Perhaps my Lord would have liked a stool?” a quiet, kind voice asked from behind him. (The boy knew there was nothing kind about that horrid creature, nothing quiet about the screams it left in its wake). Sebastian would poke his sides, and this demon, who was named after the beloved dog, would poke his fractured mind.

    How poetic. Should his company fail, perhaps the boy could still earn money from writing literature. He wondered if Mister Wordsmith would be proud but realised his macabre style would, most likely, only invoke a shaky nod and terrified eyes. He felt sorry for the poor man, though he couldn't exactly put his finger on why he would feel such a pitiful feeling. He was changing, and it was not an entirely pleasant thing.

    "Are the paperworks I asked for prepared?” the young lord asked. He passed Sebastian his eyepatch and waited patiently as the butler tied it in its place. As soon as he felt the knot was finished, he walked forward and let Sebastian’s hands fall, empty sooner than anticipated, at his sides. It was a petty, insignificant victory but he revelled in it.

    “Yes. I hope it is to your liking, Young Master.” The boy could hear the interested smirk in his butler’s voice, one he wore only when the boy amused him in a way no human had before. All of this fuss over a broken child whose sanity left much to the imagination, Sebastian was truly some sort of masochist. Or maybe he was just as broken. Could a demon be broken? Maybe the fall from Heaven was more painful than the child could ever guess.

    “Hope is such a pathetic word, don't you think, Sebastian?”

    “Then I guess it is a word befitting a servant.” Ciel let the cruel smile show, allowing Sebastian this tiny acknowledgment. The demon never failed to amuse him. “My Lord, there is something on mind should you care to hear it.” The boy waved his cane as they continued walking, an unspoken and dismissive permission. “Why look through a window sill when you could just go out there yourself?” Suddenly, this easy afternoon in which he had finished his work earlier than usual with no letters from the Queen turned into something far deadlier than even the most poisonous gas Sieglinde could make. This afternoon, filled with such warm sunlight and even warmer memories, turned colder than the icy Atlantic waters the boy was more than familiar with. _Drown,_ the demon was saying. _Drown and let your body sink to the very bottom, for I will be there to catch you with my claws bared._

    The boy, ever since he first met the demon, had been wondering about what exactly to compare it to. He remembered the million forms Sebastian had taken, some familiar, some he had heard of, and some so unfathomable that they made him want to scream and beg him to stop. As he considered the answers he could give, he also considered what he thought of Sebastian. What did the boy see in Sebastian, and had what he saw been enough to give up everything?

    The answer to his every question was so simple he couldn’t hold in his chuckles. The only one to amuse Sebastian would always be him and the boy found this fact very pathetic, but he also couldn't deny that only Sebastian could make him laugh (this macabre, insane laugh that he was glad his brother would never hear) so freely. Such a pair they made now, much better than the pair they had made a lifetime ago. He wondered what his brother would think if he had been able to witness this ugly picture. Had it genuinely been only three to four years ago when he would find this type of dark humour so deeply unsettling? “I saw my four incompetent servants lazing about,” he replied, his voice without shield but not vulnerable. “Playing in the garden they should be attending to.”

    “You did not see Tanaka?” Sebastian asked, genuine surprise in his voice. Gramps would always be doing whatever task Father left him with whenever he went outside to play with Ciel and Lizzy, the boy realised. When had he gotten so focused in the past that he hadn't blinked an eye when Tanaka, who was so very attached to his new servants, appeared as if he were missing?

    “I guess I just didn't care enough.” Yes, that was his answer. He just did not care enough to think about his servants, his brother, his family (dead and alive), himself. That was what Sebastian’s presence had promised, and that was why the boy had clung onto this black void. He did not care about the past, present or future. He cared only about games. He cared about the thrill, the false feeling of purpose, the risk, the anxious wait, the anticipation of a beautiful and fulfilling ‘game over’ looming closer.

    The boy cared about games so much that he had turned his life into a giant board and the people around him into pawns. He wanted to laugh, to scream, to burn this whole place to the ground, end his pathetic life. Then he thought about the five servants, of the horror they would feel at seeing their home (because it _was_ a home for them, the boy knew) burn down to nothing but a few charred walls. He remembered his dead brother’s face, his parents’ corpses, the servants strewn about the mansion with their crimson blood staining the carpets and wooden floors. They had all burned, the boy remembered, and what good had it done for them? The mansion was rebuilt with the shadow of a demon, mocking their deaths and seeing their souls insignificant. Could he bear to let his servants live through the same fate?

    Yes, if he really wanted to. But the boy didn’t like that answer and did his best to ignore it. He was still human, after all; he had the luxury to lie to himself. He wondered if Sebastian could tell when he lived a lie and when he lived the truth, the two had blended so perfectly in his life that even the boy could no longer tell. Maybe even Sebastian couldn't, maybe he existed only in the black lies and angels existed only in the white truths. Ciel wondered if his theory was true but did not ask, his every word could and would be used against him in the near future--that was the magnificent game they were playing. He wondered if his brother would be proud of him for managing to stay alive for these three years. Or maybe his brother wanted them to be side by side yet again, in the nothingness. The boy ignored that thought, too. He was getting very good at avoiding his thoughts.

    The butler opened the door and let him into his office. Earl Ciel Phantomhive, the founder and president of the Funtom Company, sat at his grand desk and stared at the perfectly written words and the perfectly crafted sentences. He had not expected any less. Sebastian’s aesthetics, annoying but trustworthy enough, were too rooted into the demon for him to ever disappoint his master. That was the predictability which came with immortal life, one of the only few advantages Ciel had over the demon who had its claws deep inside his fractured mind.

    And the game went on, both sides anxiously waiting the next move, with their white and black crowns glinting in the warm sunlight. Ciel Phantomhive kept his eyes on the future, on Sebastian, and kept living in the present--for the past could no longer have any place in his guarded heart. 


End file.
